The Waiting Game: True Stories of Renovation

02 May

When we think of renovation, what comes to mind? Lumber? Noise? Large men on ladders?

What may not come immediately to mind is: nothing. That’s right: the solemn silence of nothing. It’s the worst sound that you can hear during a construction project. It means that no one is getting closer to their goals. It’s also a great source of stress for homeowners – we might be irritating when we’re asking what kind of door hinge you’d like installed following 50 other rapid-fire questions, but that’s nothing compared to the stress of having no questions to answer.

…and why, per se, are we talking about nothing happening on projects? Simple! It’s one of the largest scheduling challenges to anticipate. What, you ask, is so hard about keeping a productive schedule? One word, my friends: Government. It’s the one thing we can’t control.

So, let’s see, where should we start?

Ah yes, the Oak Brook project! I should’ve known that my wincing from the kindness of the Village last fall was a well-founded gut reaction. When something is too good to be true, it normally is…and as such, after over 6 months of preparation with the Village, when we went to get our landscape permit, they suddenly asked for a topographic survey. Do you know what a topographic survey is? Yeah, well, neither did they. Must’ve sounded good. So! What can we do? One topographic survey to regrade our residential grass coming up!

Dear Front Yard: Feel better soon.

What next? Of course! The Firehouse! City of Chicago inspections can take anywhere from 2 – 6 weeks for inspections. Yes, you read that right. I once waited for a final inspection for a month and a half. Thus, we have one inspection left before we can close up the walls at The Firehouse. Now, in all fairness, the City has a massive amount of inspections to complete and – compared to other municipalities – I’d say they’re doing an excellent job of organizing and executing their job. Let’s just say that I appreciate it when it feels like we have a logical and common goal with inspectors. Ultimately, though, inspections take time to schedule and how much time they will take is impossible to predict. We were hoping for drywall this week. As it turns out, our last inspection isn’t scheduled until Friday (Cinco de Mayo!). So, we wait!

Ally waiting for inspections: 7:30am – 4:00pm!

What do we do while we’re waiting? Anything and everything to set up for the next phase: purchase landscape lighting, order dirt, pull our wires, deliver drywall, call our subs to make sure they haven’t taken on some other large job in place of ours…

Then, we call our clients to remind them that we care! We miss them too! We’d rather be dirty and sunburned!